I know I said no more teas for a while, but then I saw Kittea’s Year of the Pig tea and I was like “my gastric can’t get any worse”. Plus, this is a seasonal tea and I am such a sucker for seasonal items (living in Japan was so dangerous to my wallet).

The Year of the Pig tea is a mango tropical oolong tea, and this is the description:

“A symbol of happiness, deep sincerity, with a touch of self-indulgence, celebrate the Year of the Pig with a fresh cup of Oolong tea with notes of honeyed mango, pineapple, strawberry, orange & apple.”

When I opened up the tea, I was hit with a very strong citrus scent. No wonder, because the tea has mangoes, pineapples, oranges, strawberries, etc., all mixed into the oolong. I spotted a pretty big piece of orange in my tin – guess that’s some unexpected gold for me!

The tea liquor was a pale gold colour, which isn’t surprising because the oolong seems to be the lightly oxidised type (if the colour of the leaf is any indication. I’ll admit I’m not as familiar with oolong as I should be!). The scent of the tea liquor was surprisingly muted and I could make out both the fragrance of oolong and all the fruits in the tea. This does not, however, apply to the brewed leaves – they had a very intense citrusy fragrance after brewing! Also, the leaves opened up quite a bit during brewing so this is really not a tea for a small infuser (I used T2’s tea maker and it was great being able to see all the leaves unfurl.

The taste of the tea was more in line with my initial impressions of it. The citrus notes, especially that of the orange, was more prominent while the taste of oolong was a lot more subtle. I didn’t really get any mango notes, but I’ve always had problems discerning mango from a more general ‘fruity’ taste so that’s not very surprising.

Overall, this is a lovely tea that feels very Chinese New Year to me. I’ve already started sharing it with my family and they like it, so we’ll probably bring this out when guests come to our house.